Singtel’s Optus suffers emergency call outage near Melbourne, spokesperson says vandalism to blame
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Optus said an “aerial fibre break” could be the cause of the outage, which was being investigated.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
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SYDNEY - Australian telco Optus said on Nov 26 it had suffered an emergency call outage near Melbourne impacting around 14,000 users, two months after a broader disruption that caused three deaths
Optus, owned by Singtel, said an “aerial fibre break” could be the cause of the outage, which was being investigated.
“Customers will only be able to call emergency services if they are within coverage of another mobile network or are able to call via Wi-Fi,” the company said on its website.
Singtel shares fell as much as 1 per cent in the morning on news of the outage, before paring losses to stand at $4.76 at the midday trading break, down 0.2 per cent.
Australian media outlet ABC News, quoting a radio interview that Optus spokesperson Jane McNamara gave to ABC Radio Melbourne at about 11am local time (8am Singapore time), said the disruption was due to vandalism.
“We know copper has been removed from the pit and we have contacted Victoria police,” she said, adding that Optus has photo evidence of its wires being cut.
The issue is expected to be rectified by about 1pm local time, she said.
Services were restored by about 11.20am local time, however. REUTERS
